There’s no need to introduce this band, I guess. All of you, who have more or less been following the prog-rock/metal scene, know that Riverside is a widely praised group of four musicians who marked their perceptible print on the music-map with their debut “Out of Myself”. At the end of March, 2006, they set off on a tour in order to promote their latest effort, “Second Life Syndrome”, and as luck would have it, they stopped off at Gniezno, a town located 30km from my little hometown. I called a friend whom I study with, and we both decided that we would go.

I got on the train to Wrzesnia at 15.08 and was there 20 minutes later. I had to wait for about 30 minutes before the train to Gniezno arrived. So I got on it at 16.00, found a good seat, and waited ‘til it finally ended its journey (around 16.35). When I got off the train,my friend, Kifer, was already waiting for me, and told me that if we were faster, we might catch Riverside at a press-conference in Gniezno Gallery, which was planned to begin at 17.00. He was driving as fast as he could and thanks to him, we were at the doors of the Gallery in time.

I managed to buy a Riverside CDS (“Conceiving you”) when the band came in and the conference started. Well, there were maybe 20-25 people waiting for them so it wasn’t hard to get all of their autographs. The meeting lasted maybe for 20 minutes and the band was off to rehearse in MOK, the place the gig was taking place at. Then we went to Kifer’s and had a few beers before going out. We appeared at MOK a few minutes after 20.00, but the band hadn’t started yet. I set off to nose a bit around the venue and found a Riverside-poster, which I grabbed immediately.

The wait got us quite nervous but as we were about to go mad, Riverside finally started their live-ceremony. To my surprise, they used a part of Pink Floyd’s “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” as the intro, which turned out pretty fine. Then they went smoothly to one of the most memorable songs off “Second Life Syndrome”, namely “Conceiving you”. It’s a very atmospheric and slow song, packed with a great dose of emotions and fantastic piano parts.

The audience gathered in MOK (around 100 people, it was kind of a cozy gig) got into the right mood straight away, and lasted in it ‘til the last song. Well, to tell you the truth now, I can’t recall the setlist in chronological order. From what I remember, Riverside played “Second Life Syndrome”, “Acronym Love”, “Out of Myself”, “Artificial Smile”, my favourite “I Believe”, “Reality Dream”, “Volte-Face”, “The Curtain Falls” and “Loose Heart” (encore). There were probably 3 or 4 more tracks but as I said, I can’t list them at the moment. However, one thing very I’m sure of is that they didn’t play “In Two Minds”. Oh dear. Apart from that, everything was beyond reproach. Riverside had a great sound so it all came down to superbly re-played tracks. All instruments were set to their highest, but all of them were audible and easy to distinguish. Even though the gig was rested upon one guitar (Riverside is a quartet), there was nothing missing. The guys seemed to be quite pleased and enjoyed the gig as much as we did. After the encore, the four stepped forward, bowed and that was all to be seen that night.

I returned home the following day, tired but with a grin on my face. Riverside didn’t disappoint and that’s what counts. To close this report, I want to force you all to go and see Riverside at least once in your life.

Yet another oldie that I dug from Global Domination archives. A very funny interview with a very funny lad.

I’m sure none of you have ever heard of Profanation. I can’t blame you. Their music sucks hairy balls but they were cool enough to comment on my two reviews in very fair and friendly way. Anton (guitar), my interlocutor, seemed to be quite the joker so the answers he gave are nothing but a sort of piss-fun jokes. Here’s what he had to say…

Someone from the band.

Anton: How often will I need to tell you this? You’re doing this interview cause you like it, watching paint dry. On the other hand you’d like to promote sucking shit in public or so. I think after this interview, nothing will be the way it used to be, hehe.

Tell us the story behind Profanation. The basic shit: when it was founded, how many releases you have already put out and so on and so forth…

Start up boring… Ok: It was a very cold night before christmas 1997, when Santa Claus decided to end the reign of good music on this earth and unleash Profanation. Back then he thought he’d give a guitar to Alex and frighten him so much, that he’d scream his guts out. A bass guitar fell down to Luxl’s feet. And on the drums he put the christmas angel called Anja. This threesome put up some noise and disturbed different locations in Germany, which are well known for their bad taste… In february of 2000 the christmas angel lost its wings and Luxl thought he could play drums even worse. So I had to join in as Master of Disaster. Later on, Alex guts were a ‘lil used up, so Hippi had to join to help him out… A couple of gigs followed and in 2001 we found ourselves bad enough to get our trash, called “Dead man rotting”, out. Reactions from tasteless people all over the world were great but we needed a break as we were still not shitty enough. So we tried to incorporate an even worse 2nd guitar-torturer, but he was too good for us. So in 2005, after 3 times recording the same shit, we were ready to open another chapter of the same book, called “Dead body fuck”, very well received in famous webzines like Global Domination. Shortly after, the best one-handed guitarplayer in the world, best known as Christoph, joined our league. Read the rest of this entry »

At first, I was only supposed to do a review of Callenish Circle’s latest effort “Forbidden Empathy”, but as it turned out I also had an opportunity to interview the band’s leader and I quickly took advantage of it. I talked with Patrick (vocals) about brand new stuff, early days, techno and alcohol.

Patrick

Patrick: Could be better. Didn’t sleep last night, went to bed at 23.00 but at 03.30 I still hadn’t slept for a single minute so I decided to get up early today. So I feel kinda wrecked now, hehehe. But aside from that I am doing fine.

Let’s talk about your latest album “Forbidden Empathy”, a double CD compilation that contains your first 2 albums, demo and MCD. Tell me, was there a demand for such a release? Did fans put pressure on you or was it just a whim, something like “Hey guys! Let’s re-release our early stuff, just for fuckin’ fun!”?

The main reason for releasing this 2CD is that our early releases lacked decent promotion and distribution. Since most of these releases were out of pressing or hard to find we got more and more people asking for our old material. Also because we gained some new fans after the release of “Flesh_Power_Dominion” and “My Passion // Your Pain” (both on Metal Blade Records). So after all those years we thought the time was right to re-release all our old material properly so it would be available for our new fans as well. Read the rest of this entry »

Yes, it is a fact. Me, a Sunday World of Warcraft player, got ahold of a ‘new’ (at least for me) mount that I wanted so much. It is not fancy, there are better ones out there, but I love mine – it’s BIG.

Have you ever heard of AXESLASHER? Too bad. They haven’t been around for a long time, but they sure know how to play metal the right way. The band feature a good friend of mine – Brynjar – behind the kit.